A lot of people think that Saturday Night Live cast member Sasheer Zamata must have an old family name. But as she reveals in her first stand-up special, Pizza Mind, her first name actually came from an episode of her mom and dad’s favorite show: Star Trek.

“I do believe it’s an Indian name. Or that’s what Facebook told me,” she tells Vanity Fair. There was a moment in time where I was the only Sasheer, and then when other people who weren’t in college could join [Facebook], it was me and Indian men who have the name Sasheer.”

Fun stories like that dot the special, which premieres on March 30 on the Seeso streaming service. But Zamata spends most of time talking about issues like race and gender, delivering cutting jokes with a relaxed smile that belies what’s bubbling underneath. Vanity Fair spoke with Zamata about the special, as well as how the rise of Donald Trump has affected Saturday Night Live—especially when Alec Baldwin dons his Donald Trump wig—and the controversy that preceded her arrival at the sketch show in 2013,.

Vanity Fair: Did you intend for the special to have a theme?

Sasheer Zamata: It wasn’t, I’d say, a planned theme. I guess what it feels like to me is kind of a . . . light, or fun, way to look at some heavier issues. I’ve definitely become more politically aware over the last couple of years, but I’ve always talked about this stuff. But the delivery’s definitely changed from when I started doing stand-up—I was cuter and had a more positive outlook on life, just wanted people to like what I was saying. And now I don’t care if people like what I’m saying. It’s more about if I’m having fun onstage. If people dig it, then great, fantastic. If not, that’s O.K., thankfully there’s so many other comics they can go tune in to.

What specifically has gotten you more politically active? Is it something specific, or just getting older?

I do think it’s getting older. I’m no longer in my 20s, and I think by default the rose-colored glasses are off. And just in the last few years, a lot of crazy things have been happening in the news—Ferguson, and the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement. I’ve become more interested in talking about these things.

How do you sort that out onstage? There’s anger underneath, but you’re funny in a way that’s very calm and chill.

My personality is definitely calm and chill. And I talk about this too in the special, where it’s like I am seething with anger on the inside, but it’s hard for people to tell because I do seem so smiley and calm. There’s definitely ways to get your anger out and not have to yell and kick and scream and fight people. That’s not my jam. That’s never how I’ve been.

In the special, you talk about people confusing you for Jessica Williams and Kerry Washington—not because you look like them, but because of a certain kind of carelessness.

Yeah. It’s the same kind of thing that would happen with “Hidden Fences.” If it happens over and over again, it’s like, this is a clear sign that people are just lumping all the black things in one pile instead of thinking of them as individual talents. That’s how it feels when someone mistakes me for another black performer. Like, if someone was like, “Oh, La La Room!” La La Land and Room—they’re totally different movies. How could you possibly confuse those unless you were just talking about the demographics of people who were in them?

Sasheer Zamata as Beyoncé and Alec Baldwin as a doctor during the Beyoncé's Babies sketch on S.N.L, February 11, 2017.

By Will Heath/NBC/Getty Images.

The special was taped after the election. What has it been like at S.N.L. since then, for the writers and for the performers? How surreal have the last six months been?

Hmm. I mean, everyone feels how they feel about the election. And as a show, I think we’re putting more of that emotion in our work. Of course, we say we try to be impartial. I don’t know if people view us as a show that’s doing that. We try to analyze what’s happening and then put a comedic lens on it, but I think there is more bite to what we’re doing than before. And I like that a lot.

Do the writers and cast feel more pressure to do political stuff now?

I haven’t talked to anyone who feels like we are under pressure to do political stuff. I think it’s because we’re all following politics, and we are finding certain things to be funny. I feel like we’re definitely more detail oriented than the show used to be—I can’t remember a time when the show’s made fun of, like, the head of education, or the person who’s in charge of H.U.D. We’re really analyzing every part of what’s happening, and spoofing it.

Do you guys look to the show’s past political sketches for inspiration?

There’s such a rich history in S.N.L. of political humor, and I think audience members expect that from us. I see strangers on the street, and they’re talking about how they’re looking forward to our take on something that happened in the news that week. That’s really exciting! People find it cathartic, and we can provide a pretty instant critique.

When Alec is in the studio doing Trump, do you feel an extra electricity?

Definitely. It’s like a sporting event, they’re losing their minds. Alec will come out and say nothing, and people are just screaming for minutes. People really have gotten attached to his caricature of Trump.

In the special, you mention a sketch Kerry Washington did when she hosted in 2013—she had to play several different African-American characters, because there were no black women in the cast. You were cast after the show addressed that controversy. When you found out that the show was specifically looking for a black woman, did you hesitate at all before going for it?

Well, I had auditioned for the show before all of that drama was going on. S.N.L. had known about me since like, 2011, maybe? I can’t remember. But they’d seen me perform live before, and then I’d been invited to do showcases for them. So when this was happening in 2013, I was already planning on auditioning. I had literally put together like a practice audition reel and sent it to my manager, and I was like, “Give me notes so we can work on this.” I was just getting ready for the next summer, for when they usually have auditions. And then blogs started picking up this trend. When one topic gets trendy, everyone starts picking it up, and we all have this induced fake rage. Everyone’s like, “Oh! Now we’re all mad about this!”

So it got very heavy, and it had a lot of traction, and then I guess the show responded. And then they were like, “We need to have a rushed audition.” So I sent my manager my audition reel, and he sent it to them. I think the next week we had a showcase; the next week I went into the studio to test, and then found out I was on the show after Christmas break. So yeah, it was all [a] very fast process. But you know, I wanted to be on the show before all that stuff was going on. So it didn’t really change my intention or my plan.

I was already planning on that trajectory anyway—[but] to some people who didn’t know me or my history with the show, it seemed like I got plucked off the street. It was weird to have a very public audition in that way. No one else gets that. There’s no other kind of mass call for cast members. I was in the press for just auditioning. Like there was an article in Deadline saying, “These are the girls who are auditioning, and they’re all going in Monday morning.” And I don’t even know how they got that information, and I’m getting all these texts and e-mails that are like, “Good luck!”—which is so nice and wonderful that I got so much support, but also so stressful. It’s historically a secret, and now it’s a very public thing. It was a very weird way to go through that. Whatever; it all happens for a reason.

Now that you and Leslie Jones have been doing so well on the show, does it seem strange that this was happening four years ago? Why they couldn’t or wouldn’t find anybody, or why they kept giving Kenan Thompson all the roles for female black characters?

Yeah. Um, I’m gonna skip this question. I can’t think of a diplomatic way to answer.